The first Clementine was a five-ton Aveling and Porter steam traction engine. For fairly obvious reasons — need for a boiler certificate, extreme size, potential skin-scalding insurance nightmare, and so on — the Aveling and Porter became impractical, so she was replaced in 1960.

But Clem’s story starts many years before that…

At manufacture Clementine II was fitted with a ‘general utility’ body consisting of a flatbed with dropsides, a canvas tilt and removable bench seats on flatbed for use when carrying passengers.

Clem II was first registered on 13 October 1926 by Mr E.R. Courage of Edgcote, Banbury, Oxfordshire of the brewery estate bearing his name. At the time Mr Courage was moving estate from Essex to Edgcote. Clem was used to transport his belongings between the estates (a 220-mile trip). Later she was the used for general duties on the Edgcote estate until 1946, when she was returned to the Essex estate. There she remained until 1957.

In 1957 Clem was moved and stored at Sheringham Hall, Sheringham, Norfolk, under the ownership of a Mr Fitzpatrick. Not much is known about Mr Fitzpatrick or how he came to own Clem, but it is known that he kept her as part of a vehicle collection and offered her to a friend for regular use.

Meanwhile, back on campus, the RSM began looking for a new mascot. Students heard of a Morris in Norfolk and two students were despatched to see her. It was decided that the lorry would be ideal for the RSM. She was bought and towed back to London by a 1934 Ford lorry, becoming Clementine II, the RSM mascot in January 1960.

Clem enjoyed healthy notoriety as mascot until students disassembled her for a complete overhaul in 1976.

Unfortunately, the project lapsed and Clem was promptly forgotten. She might have been regulated to the dustbin of history but for a group of students more than 10 years later. They literally began the project sorting through boxes of parts.

It took more than a year to straighten her rolling chassis and rebuild the engine, “an amazing feat as we later discovered that the ignition timing was 15 degrees advanced and there was no main jet in the carburetter,” wrote Stephen Laing, a student at the time.

In the 1990s Laing wrote about the next steps:

The next step was the cosmetic work. The paint was kindly donated by Joseph Mason plc and applied by us. Most of Clem is original although a fair amount of the flatbed has had to be replaced due to rotten wood. The replacement pieces have been built to her original ‘general utility’ specification and it is hoped to build seats and a canvas tilt to complete the ‘general utility’ body.

The students of RSM have made Clem’s predicted restoration possible and her popularity continues. Every year Clem participates in the Historic Commercial Vehicle Society’s London to Brighton Run, as well as the Veteran Car Club run.

Clem spends most of the summer touring southern England at vintage vehicle and steam rallies, so don’t forget your tents!

If you wish to be apart of maintaining Clem II, reach out to the RSM Motor society

The first mascot was a Michelin man acquired in February 1958 under sub-committee chairman Alan Lewis. The exact acquisition is largely unknown except that it was “purloined by a free spirit from its former place of honour atop the cab of a lorry dedicated to serving Michelin customers.”

Purloined, people, purloined.

The individual hoops of Michelin man’s jovial body were subsequently painted alternately in the white, yellow and black colours of the RSM and presented to committee.

Reported by Felix on 18 January 1958:

This meeting was unique in the history of the Mines Union in that the President of Bedford College, Miss Marilyn Farr, the Vice-President, and sundry other members of this illustrious college were present. After making a short speech, addressing the meeting by “Mr President, Gentlemen and Lover Boy in the corner…’ Miss Farr christened Mitch, as the mascot is to be called, by pouring a pint of bitter over his head.

Yep. ‘Lover Boy’ Mitch. The next day happened to be St Valentine’s Day and Mitch was presented with his first valentine, and with his first birthday present. Some Miners are still mystified by the significance, or otherwise, of the cabbage, brush, and lemon presented.

Mitch’s name was appropriate to his origin but also relevant to the good name of the Dean of the RSM and Professor of Mining, Professor J.C. Micheson. The Professor, also known informally as Mitch, was a consummate gentleman with a highly ascetic disposition, and was (not unjustifiably as a result) spoken of as ‘the orange juice Dean’.

Mitch rode with RSM on the original Clementine, a traction engine, for several years.

In 1965 Royal School of Mines voted to discard Mitch because he had little popular appeal, and worse, a Michelin Man was also the mascot of the National College of Rubber Technology [now London Metropolitan Polymer Centre].

Students on committee suggested a sea mine as a replacement – despite great impracticality and safety concerns. The matter went as far as to receive response from First Lord of the Admiralty, stating he had passed the matter to the Chief of Armaments.

An alternative was presented 18 May: an incredibly heavy, three-foot high model of one of the earliest Davy lamps, designed by Fergus Kerr and built by Bert West of the Metallurgy Department. He too was painted black and yellow. Name suggestions were posted to “R. Gash via the letter racks; a small reward is offered”.

The student who named Davy is lost to the sands of time. Will an alumnus from this time period  come forward with evidence of who named Davy?

No sooner had Davy been birthed and named than he was stolen in 1965. “We also stole RSM’s Davey lamp and filled it with cement and epoxied all the connections before we returned it,” admitted Ralph Cornforth (Physics 1965).

Fights to capture and retrieve Davy are legendary. One disruptive battle lasted uninterrupted for hours prior to the anticipated campus visit of Viscount Falmouth. There was so much mess that Mines had to hire an emergency crew to work the night to be presentable the next day.

In one episode of Davy-chasing,

“Two RCS men spent 18 months tracking down where he was stored in RSM by hiding in cupboards after RSM UGMs and listening out for the Davey Bearers going by. Eventually they narrowed down the location of the mascot to one particular storeroom in the basement and hid behind a filing cabinet just outside as Davey was put away. Later that night they returned with hacksaws, hammers, drills and boltcutters, picked the lock to the room and demolished the only cupboard therein which was Davey’s hideyhole.”

A second Davy was built of anodised aluminium and brass to be lighter weight and more decorative. He is referred to as MkII, New Davy and, frequently, Shiny Davy. Initially, RSM used Old Davy as a decoy to deceive potential thieves by carrying both into and out in bin liners.

But, the plan backfired.

In the mid-eighties Old Davy went missing from the Mines office where it had been used as a doorstop. Old Davy was briefly recovered in the Physics level 1 common room behind a wood panel, but disappeared and has never been seen since.